


The Price of Magic

by sockfics



Series: Once Upon a Dark Time [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Consent Issues, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Past Child Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Underage Sex, Wicked Hell, zades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:44:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7756558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockfics/pseuds/sockfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows that all magic comes with a price.  Zelena never imagined how high the price of being born with magic could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of a dark AU 'verse of Once Upon a Time, and, as such, contains triggery scenes and themes. Please heed the warnings/tags. Read at your own risk.
> 
> Concrit and positive feedback are always welcome. Flames and hate will be summarily deleted.
> 
> Once again, my thanks to Odhinn Maiden for always being there as a sounding board, one-woman support network and hand-holder extraordinaire.
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> **  
> **  
> I DO NOT CONDONE SLAVERY, CHILD ABUSE, PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE, SEX WITH MINORS OR ANY OTHER BEHAVIOR PORTRAYED IN THIS FIC.  
>   
> 

**~~~***~~~**

It was hard to decide which was worse: the eyes that were indifferent to her, or the eyes that raked over her with obvious hunger.

Zelena wanted to rage, to cast about with fury and fire until the entire crowd was laid to ash; only the fact that her magic had been bound when her adoptive father had sold her kept her from it. And so she stood now on the auction stage, naked but for the binding cuffs at her wrists, as prospective buyers listened to the auctioneer extoll her selling points.

“And here, ladies and gents: a virgin of sixteen years, raised on a farm and taught the virtue of a day’s hard labor. As you can see, she’s a comely creature: strong and healthy, built for taking your pleasure in, and raised to follow the commands of her betters.”

“Why does she bear the cuffs?” a female voice called out. Zelena could not see the face it belonged to, willing herself to not flush in humiliation.

“How do we know she’s a virgin?” another voice demanded; male this time. She could see the leer in his eyes as he gazed up at her from near the front of the throng. He was brutish-looking, with dark hair and a portly, sweaty build. “I won’t be sold a pig to poke, Harald.”

“The winning bidder can, of course, examine her prior to payment to verify her purity,” the auctioneer agreed easily. Zelena felt sick. “And the cuffs are enchanted; the wench was born with magic, and they keep it bound to the will of her master. She cannot use it unless her owner commands her to do so.”

A murmur chased through the crowd; it was obvious that several people were reconsidering bidding for her, including the lecherous brute near the front. Regardless of the precautions, magic made people nervous, especially in slaves.

“Now, now!” the auctioneer called out, trying to reassure them. “The cording closing them is also enchanted; only her owner may remove them. She is as tame as any other slave-”

“I doubt that.”

All eyes swung to the new speaker, who leaned lazily against the back fence of the auction green. Something in his body gave every appearance of a leopard, with a mane of dark hair caught at his nape and assessing eyes as black as pitch. His traveling leathers were form-fitting, well-kept and obviously costly; this was a man born to power and bred to be dangerous. Zelena felt a spike of fear as those eyes took in every inch of her without his ever moving. “In fact, I’d say she has more fire in her spirit than any ten pit fighters.”

“My lord Aeacus.” The auctioneer’s tone was instantly obsequious as he and most of the crowd bowed to the man. “You honor us, but I can assure you: the girl will prove no trouble whatsoever; she is perfectly tractable-”

“If that were true, it would be indeed a shame.” Aeacus stood up straighter, his eyes intent on Zelena’s face. “As my lord would take no pleasure in a tractable woman.” He strode through the crowd towards the stage; no one remained in his way, melting from his path like snow under a spring rain. “But I would hear the girl answer for herself, Harald.” He mounted the stage in a graceful jump; Zelena took a defensive step back, her chin lifting just a fraction as he closed the distance between them. For half a moment, his eyes flickered to the mark limned into the skin just above the swell of her left breast, and then his gaze locked with hers. “What say you, my pet?” Aeacus asked, his voice deceptively sweet. “Are you as meek as he claims?”

As bad an idea as it usually was to answer a free man’s questions with anything but humility, something in Zelena could not back down from the challenge. “I am no man’s pet,” she spat, her eyes flashing venom.

The air was still for a moment, and then Aeacus laughed. He stepped back from her space and drew a bag from the purse at his belt. It made a heavy clinking sound as it landed at the auctioneer’s feet. “That’s twice what you could hope for from this crowd for her, Harald. She would be wasted on any of them.”

Scooping up the bag hastily, the auctioneer’s head bobbed his assent. “A pleasure doing business with you, my lord. Would you care to peruse-”

“I already have,” Aeacus answered peremptorily. “And my lord has no use for the rest of your farm stock. I will have the wench’s traveling clothes and the spell to give my lord power over her bindings, and then we must be on our way.”

“Of course; of course.” The auctioneer gestured for his assistant to come forward; Aeacus was drawn off to a private corner of the yard with him, while the auctioneer brought forward his next offering.

Zelena was dragged down from the stage and back to the holding pen by one of the female slave traders. Dressing quickly in the clothing thrust at her, she could not help asking: “Who is he? That man that just bought me?”

“Lord Aeacus,” the slaver replied coolly. “He has a fearsome reputation, girl, and his lord even more so. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll spread your legs and hold your tongue.” Without another word, a leather collar and lead chain were fastened around Zelena’s neck; for half a heartbeat, Zelena thought she saw pity in the other woman’s eyes.

There was no time to say more, and Zelena had little inclination to try. The female slaver escorted Zelena to Aeacus, who waited just beyond the back gate of the auction green. He took hold of her lead chain, carelessly wrapped it twice around his hand, and eyed her clothing critically before leading her away. “You’ll need something more presentable than those rags,” he commented as they drew near a carriage. “But we can attend to that later. We’ve a long journey ahead.”

Zelena was surprised when he opened the carriage door for her and urged her inside, rather than dragging her in behind him. “And where is it that we’re going… Master?”

Aeacus laughed again, clearly amused. “Oh, no: I’m not your Master, girl. You’re meant for my lord, and it’s to his palace that we travel.” He saw the mistrust in her eyes and smiled at it. “Your safety… and your virtue… are under my protection until I deliver you to him. No one shall trifle with you; you have my word.”

“Why should I trust you?” she snapped, emboldened by his pricking of her temper on the auction stage. “You could just as easily have your way with me on the road and then lie to your master: claim that I was already soiled before I was put up for sale.”

“He would know it for a lie,” Aeacus refuted, a touch of the danger she’d been warned of creeping into his tone. He thumped the carriage wall, signalling the driver to begin their journey. “And while your spirit is charming, I would not tempt my forbearance if I were you.”

Fuming, but unwilling to press her luck, Zelena sat back against the carriage seat as it lurched into motion. “May I know the name of my new Master?” she asked, striving to take some of the hostility from her voice.

There was an amused flicker in Aeacus’ dark eyes as he shifted to recline across his carriage seat, obviously preparing to drowse as they rode. “Hades,” he answered, his tone matter-of-fact. “Dread Lord of Erebos.”

A chill swept Zelena at his name and she sat back. Even in Oz, the reputation of Hades of Erebos was well known… and she had just become his property.

“I would settle in for a rest,” Aeacus advised, watching with hooded eyes as Zelena’s new reality sank in. “It is a three-day journey to reach his palace at Asphodel.”

**~~~**

True to his word, Aeacus left Zelena unmolested as they traveled to the home of her new master. They stopped briefly to obtain something other than the shabby linen shift that the slavers had given her on the second day of their journey, but beyond that, the carriage was in motion from sunrise until nightfall. They broke their fast and lunched on travel rations Aeacus kept in the carriage; supper was served to their rooms at the inns they slept in. Although Aeacus required Zelena to stay in the same room as he, he did not touch her in any way, even to restrain her.

“I will know if you try to flee,” Aeacus warned her the first night. “And you will not enjoy the results of such folly. I mean to deliver you to Lord Hades unharmed, but I will not be crossed by a headstrong slave; are we understood?”

Zelena had nodded her understanding; much as she wanted to escape, something about the predatory glint in Aeacus’ eyes stayed any thoughts in that vein from becoming action.

By midday on the third day, they arrived at Asphodel. It did not surprise Zelena that the carriage driver brought them to a halt at the servants’ entrance; she was a slave, even if she was being escorted by one of Lord Hades’ trusted vassals. Aeacus once again took her chain in hand and led her into the lower levels of the castle, where they were met by a woman of middling years with a no-nonsense expression. “And what have we here, my Lord?” she asked briskly.

“A gift for my Lord Hades,” Aeacus answered. “One he would never have forgiven me for passing up. I would present her to him myself, but not before a bath and a proper meal; we have journeyed for three days to arrive here.”

The woman, who was obviously the servants’ matron, harrumphed as she looked Zelena over with a critical eye. “Well, she’s handsome enough for his pleasure, I suppose. Have you a name, girl?”

“Zelena,” she answered, surprising herself with the steady clarity of her voice. She hadn’t wanted her mounting anxiety to show, but it felt increasingly difficult to contain.

“Well then, Zelena: take that silly collar off and come with me,” the matron commanded.

For a moment, Zelena faltered; Aeacus chuckled as he unfastened the collar from her neck. “You won’t need that here anyway,” he informed her. “No one leaves Asphodel without Lord Hades’ consent.”

“All right, Lord Aeacus; I’ll take over from here.” The matron gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Your own servants will be dispatched to see to your needs; she’ll be ready for Lord Hades by supper.”

“My thanks, madam.” With a final assessing gaze, Aeacus left to seek his own comforts.

Shaking her head, the matron stepped over to Zelena and took her by the wrist. “Come; the sooner we get you bathed and fed, the sooner you can get a bit of rest. The gods know you won’t have much tonight.”

Dread beginning to tie knots in her belly, Zelena followed.

**~~~**

Hours later, dressed in a simple gown of forest green silk, her ginger hair washed and brushed to a soft shine and then braided down her back, Zelena was escorted by the matron and two of Lord Hades’ personal guards to his sitting room.

Lord Aeacus was there, standing by the hearth with a goblet of something in his hands. The only other occupant of the room was seated in a chair facing the hearth. Too high-backed to reveal even the top of the man’s head, Zelena couldn’t see much of her new owner past the chair in which he sat: only a forearm clad in fine black linen; a long-fingered hand holding a parchment scroll; strong calves in dark kid leather stretched out; two bare feet, crossed at the ankles, propped up on an ottoman.

Aeacus looked up from the other man when Zelena was brought in, and his expression was oddly triumphant when he registered her presence. The matron and guards melted from the room at his nod. “My lord,” he said, his tone filled with that same strange note of victory. “My gift to you has arrived.”

Zelena watched as the chair’s occupant stood and turned, refusing to quail as she got her first glimpse of her new owner’s face.

It was a handsome face; not exceptionally so, but there was a strange magnetism in his features that made Zelena’s chest constrict. She couldn’t make out the color of the eyes studying her so intently, as they were hooded in shadow with his back to the fire, but his hair was tousled in short, messy waves that made her fingers itch for want of taming them. He was limber and strong beneath his fine clothes, but not so bulky as to be immediately intimidating. They were of a height, she realized as he drew closer, and when he reached her, she realized that those unruly waves were a sandy blonde.

“Aeacus says your name is Zelena.”

His soft, almost sibilant voice poured through her like warm honey, and it took a moment for Zelena to find her own. “It is… Master.”

The title caused a smile to break over his face, a chuckle rolling in his throat. He had white, even teeth, and the smile carved charming creases beside the eyes she still didn’t know the color of. “You’re not used to that word, are you… Zelena?”

Her name on his lips made her shiver; something about his eyes sharpened, telling her that he’d noticed. “No, Master… my father sold me to the slave traders only a few weeks ago.”

“And why would he do such a thing?” As with Aeacus, Zelena could hear the dangerous note beneath the deceptive mildness of Hades’ tone. He paced a tight circle around her, taking all of her in.

“My mother died a month before my sixteenth birthday,” Zelena answered, unable to keep the grief and bitterness out of her voice. “He was never a kind man, but when she died, he showed his true colors and got rid of me as soon as he could.”

“That doesn’t tell me why,” Hades admonished, coming to stand in front of her again. “Why was he unkind to his child? Why would he want to sell his daughter into slavery once her mother was no longer alive to stop him?”

The words lodged in her throat for a moment; she couldn’t be sure how much Aeacus had told him. His eyebrows tilted expectantly, and Zelena summoned her courage. “They weren’t my real parents,” she admitted. “They found me abandoned by the side of a path in the forest. My father said it was because I was born cursed with magic, and that my real mother must have known it and exposed me out there to die. My adoptive parents were never able to have children, and my mother convinced him to let her raise me. She wouldn’t give me up when they discovered my magic, but once she died...” She left it hanging, certain that she didn’t need to spell it out any further.

An ugly expression crossed Hades’ face at that: anger pure enough to drive her back from him a step. He saw it and checked himself, regaining his composure. “Such a man is beneath contempt,” he declared, the words laced with a heat Zelena didn’t understand the reason for. “What harm did your magic ever cause him?”

“None!” The word burst from Zelena, old anxieties driving it. She’d longed to prove to her father that her magic was not the curse he claimed, but all her efforts had ever brought was more condemnation. “I only ever used it to try and help, but…”

Something dangerous flickered in Hades’ expression as he heard her hesitation. “But…?”

Shame coiled in her belly, and Zelena found herself looking away from him, gazing at his bare feet on the polished hardwood floor. “He said it made me wicked.”

Those bare feet closed the distance between them; his long fingers caught her chin in a gentle grip and tilted her face up until she was gazing into his eyes. “Are you?” Hades asked.

The words curled through her like smoke, making Zelena feel queerly unsteady. His touch beneath her chin was warm, and his mouth was so close that she could feel his breath on her lips. “I… don’t know.”

A brief smile twitched across his generous lips, and then Hades released her chin and stepped away from her; Zelena felt the world spin dizzyingly around her at the loss of his proximity. He turned his back to her, looking at the man who had bought Zelena for him. “Aeacus?”

Something must have passed between them, for nothing else was said before Aeacus bowed. “It will be done, my lord. Shall I leave you?”

“Yes.” Hades turned his head to look at Zelena again, his expression speculative now. “I won’t need you any further tonight, my friend.”

“My lord.” Aeacus walked past both of them with swift, purposeful strides, never looking back and closing the door behind him.

That they were now alone brought Zelena’s dread roaring back to life. She was a slave. She was alone with an obviously virile man, who owned her and could do with her as he wished. A man that had been given the key to controlling her magic.

Whatever crossed her face at the thought, Hades obviously saw it. He turned and walked to the sideboard, pouring a cup of wine and holding it out to her. “Here; drink it.”

Hesitating a moment, Zelena joined him at the sideboard. Taking the cup from him, she drank it down, letting the heady warmth wash through her and bolster her courage. Whatever this man wanted to do to her, she would endure. She would bide her time until she could find a way to regain control of her magic, and then she would pay him back for everything he was about to do a dozen times over.

Another chuckle crossed his generous mouth, and Zelena turned her head to look at him. He looked… bemused. “You really are a firebrand,” he observed softly, almost to himself. Before she could answer, Hades reached out with both hands, each taking hold of one of her wrists. His grip was light, even gentle, easily encompassing the cuffs that bound her magic. “Your power is your own, Zelena; so long as you do not use it against me and mine, it is my will that you shall use it as you see fit.”

Her mouth dropped open even as the cuffs shuddered between them. Without another word, Hades released her left hand and turned her right up, picking open the lace of the cuff and removing it. When he repeated the same gesture with the left, Zelena couldn’t help staring at him for a long moment. “Why did you do that?”

“Because it pleased me,” Hades answered simply. “Just as taking you to my bed will please me.”

Without meaning to, Zelena felt a spark of green flame blossom in the palm of her right hand. “If you wanted that, you shouldn’t have given me control of my magic,” she warned.

“I still own you, Zelena,” Hades reminded her, the softness of his tone belying the steel underneath. “And your magic isn’t the threat you imagine.”

Zelena’s right hand lifted; Hades’ right hand mirrored the gesture. The green flame she’d been about to wield snuffed out as quickly as she’d conjured it, leaving Zelena open-mouthed in shock for a second time. “You… you have magic?”

“Your gift is… powerful, Zelena, but it’s unstable from lack of use.” Hades reached out, wrapping his right hand around her still-outstretched wrist and pulling her close. She gasped as her body collided into his, and he caught her face in his left hand. “I own you, and I will have you… the question is: will you try to fight me and lose, or will you give me what I want, and in return learn to control your… considerable talents?”

The heat of him burned through their clothes; Zelena was giddy with it, caught in the magnetism of his eyes. They were still dark in the firelit room, but her inability to discern their color did nothing to keep her from being lost in them. His presence was overwhelming, and Zelena felt absurdly like he was the only thing keeping her upright.

“If you hurt me,” she found herself warning, “I will find a way to make you regret it.”

“I’m sure you’ll try,” Hades conceded. Before she could reinforce the threat, he released her wrist to wrap his right arm around her waist and captured her open mouth with his own.


	2. Part Two

**~~~***~~~**

Heat seared through Zelena, igniting something deep in her belly and making her gasp into his mouth even as his tongue slipped inside hers. His left hand threaded up into her hair, tilting her head back as his lips left hers to explore the exposed column of her throat, and Zelena heard herself make a soft sound that she barely recognized as the whisper of mouth against her neck sent tingling cascades through her skin. “Master…”

“Hades,” he corrected, finding the shell of her ear and tracing it with his tongue. It made her shiver, the feeling intensifying when his teeth gently nipped at her earlobe. “Say my name…”

“Hades…” Her breath seemed to escape as soon as she could catch it, stolen by the brush of lips and tongue and warm air as he drifted over her jaw to capture her mouth again. This second kiss seemed even hungrier than the first, drugging Zelena’s senses and leaving her light-headed enough to swoon.

He lifted her easily into his arms as her knees began to buckle, never breaking the kiss; Zelena was so consumed that she never noticed him walking from his sitting room into the bed chamber. He must have, though, because when Hades finally lifted his mouth from hers, it was just before he set her feet down on the floor beside a great canopied bed.

A tremor of fear shook her when it registered, even as his hands found her waist and turned her around, then slid to where the gown’s lacing tied at her nape. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, brushing kisses across the sensitive skin at the base of her neck as he untied the lacing and urged the silk to part until it slipped from her shoulders. He was close behind her, but only his lips and fingers touched her now, leaving her feeling strangely exposed as he urged the dress down her body until it pooled at her feet.

“You are so beautiful.” The compliment skittered across her skin as Hades brought his hands to rest on her bare waist, the heat of skin on skin making her breath catch even as they grazed up the curve of her ribs, gliding beneath the swell of her breasts until he was cupping them in the palms of his hands.

Zelena gasped at it, feeling the nipples tighten beneath his touch and lightening twist through her. Something about his casual possessiveness made her ache inside, but then he was mouthing hot kisses along her shoulder and toying his thumbs over her pebbled nipples and she couldn’t think beyond the way that ache throbbed with every gentle tug and whispering kiss, building in a way she had no words for.

By the time he turned her around, her breath was short, ending here and there with sounds she didn’t think she’d ever made before. His hands smoothed up her spine, tipping her back until she was laid out across the bed and he was standing with one knee between her legs, gazing down at her with hooded eyes.

The pause in his attentions lasted just long enough for her senses to start realigning. Uncertain, she opened her eyes wider to take in the way he was staring down at her, then pushed herself until she was sitting upright. “Hades?”

His fingers reached out, brushing across the mark above her breast; the touch made her pulse jump, driving a moan past her lips and making her head fall back. No one had ever touched her soulmark before; she hadn’t even known what it was until the slavers had given it a name. Neither of her adopted parents had had one, and her father had forbidden her to speak of it to anyone, denouncing it as a mark of her wicked nature.

The other slaves awaiting auction had told her that people who bought soulmarked slaves usually invested huge sums of money to find and purchase or enslave the person with the matching mark; soulmarked slave pairs were quite valuable, both as pleasure slaves and as breeders. But no one had told her that someone touching it would feel like a thousand fluttering caresses washing over her all at once, or that it would make the ache inside her pull so taut and sharp that she could barely breathe for want of relief… relief that, somehow, only Hades could give her.

“Hades…” His name was a whine in her throat as his fingers brushed back across the mark; her hands grabbed for him, catching fistfuls of his linen shirt and pulling. He wouldn’t be moved and it made her snarl in frustration. She didn’t know what was happening to her; only that she needed something that he was refusing to give her. “Hades, please…”

Something in her voice shook him from his trance. His fingers stopped tracing the lines of her mark and he bent over her, brushing another open kiss to her lips. She surged up into him, hungry for something she couldn’t name, and then he was urging her further onto the bed and following her across it, until she was lying on her back against the down pillows and he was hovering over her, still fully clothed, kneeling between her spread legs.

The first pass of his fingers through her nether curls drove a soft cry from her lips; before she had time to think, he had parted her outer lips with two fingers, finding core of her warm and damp from his attentions. Those fingers slid past her soft inner folds, up inside her untouched channel, and Zelena made a shocked sound, her hands latching onto his shoulders and her nails biting deeply into his skin. “Hades… wait…”

“You’re so wet for me already.” There was a hint of marvel in behind the words, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

Zelena gasped as the fingers pressed deeper, discomfort starting to worm its way through the pleasure he’d been lavishing on her and tempering the aching need he’d been building. When they stopped, flexing ever so gingerly inside her, Zelena felt a budding sense of panic and pushed at his shoulders, trying to get his attention. “Hades… Hades, please… I…”

“They didn’t lie,” Hades observed. His fingers withdrew, and Zelena started to feel some of her panic subside. “You really are a virgin.”

Indignation flared, making her shove harder at his shoulders. “You thought I wasn’t?”

“It’s more common than you think for unscrupulous slavers to deflower a girl in a moment of heat and then sell her as a virgin anyway.” Hades smiled down at her, then brushed a kiss over lips still set in a hard line of outrage. “I’m glad that didn’t happen to you; it would’ve made more work for Aeacus.”

Her brow furrowed, but he left her no time to ask his meaning. Before she could form the question, he shifted and bent, bracing her knees over his shoulders and drawing his tongue along the soft folds of her entrance.

All thoughts vanished. Zelena lost track of everything but his clever mouth against her sex: the way his tongue lapped and licked and dipped inside, the way he drew her softness into his mouth and suckled, the way he worried at the hidden pearl she’d never known existed until she was weeping and crying out and fisting the sheets until her nails cut through them, begging openly for something she didn’t understand.

She moaned at the loss when he finally lifted his head, trailing kisses up her body and leaving smears of her own slick across her stomach. By the time he reached her mouth, swallowing her panting cries with lips that tasted of her own musk, she was beside herself with want, her knees instinctively drawing up to frame his flanks.

“Up,” he commanded. Zelena made a formless questioning sound against his mouth and Hades drew back, his hands once again guiding her. “Up on your knees.”

The order cut through some of the haze. By the time he had Zelena in the position he wanted, she was facing away from him, her hands folded over the edge of the headboard for balance and her knees spread wide. It reminded her uncomfortably of the way animals mated: the male mounting the female from behind, the female locked in place as the male rutted into her.

Making it worse was that Hades once again wasn’t touching her. She could feel the dip and sway of the bed as he moved behind her, but the loss of contact was giving her too much time to think about what was about to happen to her, and the way that it was happening. “Hades, wait… I want to see you…”

His weight draped across her back, his knees wedging between hers and pushing them even further apart. Those warm, gentle hands were cupping over her breasts again, and his lips were soft as they kissed the nape of her neck. She could feel something press up between her legs, against the slick folds he had been savoring only a few minutes ago, and the unfamiliar pressure made her startle.

“I know what I’m doing, Zelena.” The words curled into her ear, hot and dark, making another moan rattle in her chest even as his hands slid from her breasts to frame her hips. “Just let me have you.”

_He owns you now._ The insidious reminder whispered in the back of her mind, and Zelena couldn’t help the tremor that it spawned. _He can take you however he wants; whenever he wants. You didn’t fight him because you want to learn more about your magic; this is the price._

Hades felt the way she trembled against him and slid his right hand down from her hip. His fingers combed through her curls again, seeking the nub hidden between her thighs. Zelena’s head dropped forward with a low cry as he stroked it, letting the waves of need crash back through her until she was rearing back against him, her restive movements letting the weeping tip of his erection slip just inside her slick entrance.

She gasped and stilled when she felt it, shaking from the force of need and uncertainty. Hades let his fingers slow, lazily drawing against her folds to keep the fire in her blood from dying away. “Zelena… let me…”

It was too much; it wasn’t enough. The way he was barely wedged into her made the ache unbearable, and she wasn’t equipped to fight him on his own ground… not yet. Unable to speak, she moaned and pushed against him again, biting her lip as she nodded.

His grip on her hips tightened, pulling her down to meet him as he surged against her. A scream left her before she could stop it as the thick heat of him drove deep enough to rend her in two and leaving her shaking from the unexpected tear of pain. For a wild moment, she wanted to pull away from him, to escape the invasive fullness that seemed far too much to bear. His hands wouldn’t let her, holding so hard that it was sure to leave marks as he matched her movements, staying buried to her core as she struggled beneath him. “Zelena, don’t…”

“No!” She tried to throw his weight off, to break free of his hold. The pain of him inside her was getting worse with every second that she fought him, and she could feel her magic coiling in her blood, preparing to do what her body couldn’t. “Let me go!”

“You need to relax, Zelena.” His voice was coaxing, soothing balm over iron resolve. She felt his magic blanket her as surely as his body, sinking through her skin and smothering the build of her own power. “It won’t hurt so much if you stop fighting it… please, Zelena: trust me…”

He started brushing kisses over her neck and shoulders again, fingers stroking along her hips, murmuring words of comfort and reassurance even as he quelled her magic with his own. Zelena closed her eyes against it, letting him gentle her as if she were a restive mare trying to escape a stallion. _This is the price of your magic,_ she told herself again. _This is the cost of learning enough that no one can overpower your magic ever again._

Unable to wait any longer, Hades withdrew a few inches, then pushed back in. Zelena gave a pained little cry, but otherwise didn’t resist. He did it again, drawing further out and thrusting back a fraction harder. Zelena winced, tightening around him like a vice, and Hades groaned from the need for restraint, tamping down the powerful urge to ignore her discomfort and ram himself into her tender body until he spent.

“You have no idea how good you feel around me,” Hades murmured instead, hoping that praise would win past her resistance. She whimpered as he flexed inside her again, and he nuzzled along her jaw as he whispered to her. “So very wet for me… so tight I can feel every beat of your heart… let me show you how good it feels, Zelena… my fiery little witch… this is what you wanted… what you begged me for… let me give it to you…”

Slowly, Hades felt the tension leave her body, felt the clutch of her sheath around him ease just a fraction as the endearments worked their own brand of magic. When he pushed back in this time, she panted but didn’t sound pained. Part of him wanted to keep going this way, to savor the way her tight sheath pulsed and fluttered around him as he rocked inside her.

By the third stroke that she took without complaint, his restraint began to crumble.

His thrusts grew more forceful, his hands keeping her hips in place even as he shifted his knees to give himself better leverage, which forced Zelena’s open even wider. She lost her grip on the headboard at the change, catching herself on her elbows on the pillows beneath them; it bent her more sharply at the waist, the angle making her even tighter around him, and she let out a tiny cry of surprise.

Hades’ control broke.

No longer able to hold back, he began to pound into her, driving himself deeper and deeper into her tight heat until his hips slapped sharply against hers with every thrust. Dimly, through the muffle of the pillows, he heard her crying out, heard his name on her lips, but whether it was in pain or protest or pleasure no longer mattered. All that mattered was the way it felt to brush the mouth of her womb with every hard surge, the dark and powerful need to claim this beautiful girl as she had never been claimed before.

“Mine,” he snarled, slamming into her harder, faster, deeper, unable to get enough of her. She was made to take him, and she would know to whom she belonged before he was done.

He would never let her go. He would keep her like this, spread and wet and crying out beneath him, for all the rest of her life, even when she would inevitably grow heavy with child. His child.

The thought of Zelena bearing his child, of her being tied to him even more surely than being his slave, had Hades’ rhythm faltering as his sac grew tight. He heard Zelena moan his name beneath him and it was the last he could take, a guttural groan dragging up from his throat as he bottomed out and his seed burst free, spouting up into her womb as he shuddered against her prone body.


	3. Part Three

**~~~***~~~**

Huddled beneath him on her knees and elbows, Zelena could feel the heat of his seed pumping into her almost as clearly as she felt the tears dripping from her lashes. For all his promises and coaxing, there was no pleasure to be found in this act. In the end, the pleasure had been his and his alone, and she was left feeling battered. Sore. Used.

 _This is the price._ It was a litany in her mind as she waited for him to finish spending inside her. Her mother had told her when she began her monthly bleeding that someday, when she was married, her husband would give her a child by planting his seed in her womb. No matter how many questions she’d asked, her mother hadn’t elaborated much more than that, saying that she wouldn’t need to know more until her wedding night.

Hades was her owner, and this was certainly no wedding night, but Zelena now understood why her mother hadn’t wanted to give her more details. If she’d known what this would be like before arriving here, she would’ve risked Aeacus’ wrath and fled into the night before they’d gotten within sight of the castle.

It seemed an eternity before Hades’ manhood finally emptied itself into her womb, the way it twitched and jumped inside her with every pulsing spray subsiding. Hades was still holding her hips, his breath heaving as his release drained out of him, and Zelena fought to remain impassive in the quiet wake of his pleasure. She needed to be ready for whatever came next. She couldn’t let him disarm her so completely again.

When Hades’ equilibrium returned, he could feel the cold anger that had settled over the woman beneath him. He’d promised her pleasure, to make this good for her, and he’d failed to deliver on that promise, instead giving in to the primal urges he’d been battling ever since he’d seen the soulmark limned into her skin.

There was little help for it now. As gently as he could, he removed himself from her body, noting that she couldn’t quite hide the hiss of pain as he withdrew. She tried to leave the bed, but Hades wouldn’t let her go, using his leverage to flip her onto her back once again.

Her eyes flared angrily in the darkness. “If you think I’m going to let you-”

“You have no choice in the matter, Zelena,” Hades told her, watching the truth make the anger in her eyes burn hotter. “You are my slave, if you’ll recall, and you know my magic is stronger than yours. You will stay right here unless I give you leave to go, and you will submit whenever I require it of you to whatever I wish to do to you.” He reached between her legs, brushing his fingers across her sore opening. She gasped and kicked out; he caught her leg against his side, then lifted it over his shoulder, leaving her even more exposed to his touch.

When his fingers drifted across her again, they left a trail of magic in their wake.

Zelena sucked in a startled breath as it danced through her, dissolving the pain and sparking that deep ache all over again. It was a pull in her womb, sharp and demanding, and try as she might, Zelena couldn’t hold onto her anger in the face of it.

The fierceness of his own need slaked for the moment, Hades let his magic soothe her tenderest flesh and reignite the desires his lack of control had cooled. Before long she was writhing beneath him, once again panting in desperate need and fisting the sheets beneath her.

Sheets that she hadn’t noticed were stained with her maiden blood: proof that she belonged to him and him alone.

Thinking of that sent blood rushing to his manhood so fast he was dizzy with it. Hades pushed through the wave of need that tried to drown him, knowing that she would need to climax at least once before he could take what he wanted again.

He didn’t have long to wait. The magic he worked on her in concert with the expert ministrations of his fingers soon had her whining and thrashing, this time fighting not his possession but her own surrender.

“Let it happen, Zelena,” Hades crooned softly. “Let it take you.”

She whimpered his name, her hands flexing for a moment. Without warning, she reached up and dragged him down atop her, pulling his mouth to hers for a bruising kiss as her climax finally crested over, a rush of slick coating his fingers as she shuddered from the force of it.

Though he had meant to wait, to give her space to come down from her orgasm and come to terms with what his ownership of her body could mean, Hades found himself pulling her free leg around his waist. Zelena was still in the throes of her climax as he drove back into her body, a long moan punching out of her as he pounded into her.

Except this time she wasn’t fighting him. This time she was clawing at his shoulders because she wanted him closer, her rich voice chanting his name not as a plea for surcease but in a litany of need. Her hips learned his rhythm and the bed shook from the frenzy of it, until Zelena was wailing from the force of a second climax, gasping his name as he rutted into her long after it subsided.

By the time he was on the verge of his own release, she was once again whimpering under the force of his thrusts, her body tender and overstimulated. It only drove him to thrust even harder, grunting from his exertions, until he came inside her with a shout, limbs trembling as he emptied into her for a second time.

The ferocity of what had just happened between them left Zelena feeling raw, exposed; without his magic and her own climaxes to dull it, the soreness was back, deeper and sharper than before. But what left her tremulous and wanting to hide wasn’t the aftermath of her untried body being ploughed open by Hades’ thick manhood twice in a very short amount of time. It was the way he’d made her want it, the way his magic had overwhelmed her senses until she was begging for it.

It wasn’t until Zelena felt the soft fall of his kisses that she opened her eyes. Hades was smiling at her, lazy and sated. It made something warm curl inside Zelena to see it. No one had ever looked at her like that before: like she had done something wonderful, worthy of praise.

Not even her mother had ever looked at her like Hades was right now.

“I told you I could make it good for you,” Hades crowed gently. His hands stroked lightly along her thighs where they were still wrapped around his hips, his manhood flaccid but still inside her. “You are so beautiful, Zelena… you have no idea how good it feels to be inside you.”

Zelena knew in a moment that he intended to take her again. He could take her as often as he wanted, without care for how battered she would feel in the aftermath. He owned her, and she wasn’t strong enough to stop him.

Yet.

Instead, she offered him a smile as she felt him growing hard inside her abused channel.

She closed her eyes as he lifted both of her legs to slip over his shoulders, biting her lip as the angle made her clench even tighter around his girth.

As he braced himself and began to hammer into her, his thrusts made almost brutal by the way she was folded beneath him, Zelena couldn’t hide the edge of pain in the sounds he punched out of her. Couldn’t stop the tears that welled in her eyes as he claimed ownership of her body for a third time, giving no quarter despite the fact that she had been a virgin barely two hours ago. But just as the first time, Hades was too lost in his own pleasure to notice or care as he rammed into her.

He groaned her name as his seed spurted into her for a third time, his manhood twitching and blurting against the mouth of her womb for what felt like ages as she lay pinioned beneath him. If his vigor persisted like this, it wouldn’t be long before she was pregnant.

It would make escape much more difficult when she was finally ready, assuming that he allowed the child to stay with her after it was born. Regardless of the fact that he would be its sire, Hades could sell away any children she had as soon as they could be weaned.

The thought made her soulmark burn. She needed to be ready before then. No matter how callously he used her when his seed took hold, no one was going to take a child of hers away. No child of hers was going to grow up without her, wondering why she hadn’t wanted it.

Letting her legs drop on either side of him, Hades withdrew his again-limp flesh from her body and rested his weight against the aching cradle of her hips. He brushed lazy kisses over the swell of her breasts, his entire body lax in contentment.

Zelena hoped that he had finally had his fill and would drift off to sleep; with her magic under her own control, she might be able to figure out how he’d dulled her pain earlier and copy it, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask him to teach her that. She would rather die than admit to feeling every overtaxed inch of her inner muscles, or the burn in her thighs from how widely they’d been held open for him to rut between.

Perhaps, if she closed her own eyes, he might believe she had fallen asleep and leave her be. She wouldn’t actually sleep, of course… she couldn’t let her guard down that way… but just for a few minutes, she could let herself relax enough to fool him into believing she had…

**~~~**

“I can’t believe he found you,” Hades murmured.

It startled Zelena to realize that, despite the soreness inside, she’d been drowsing just beyond the edge of sleep. The fire on the hearth was lower than it had been, and Hades was no longer between her legs but beside her, propped up on one arm and gazing down at her in the darkness.

“Even more that Aeacus found you before you were sold to someone else,” he continued, apparently realizing that she was awake to hear him. Wonder was evident in his voice, but the reason for it escaped her. His fingers strayed to her soulmark, just skimming the edges. It drew a gasp from Zelena even as her womb gave a dull throb in response. “Do you have any idea how lucky we are?” he asked her. “If those bastard slavers hadn’t made sure your mark was exposed… or if Aeacus hadn’t recognized it…”

Zelena’s brow furrowed, confusion setting in at his words. “Hades… what are you talking about? What does my mark have to do with anything?”

For a moment, Hades looked genuinely startled. Then a rueful laugh barked out of him, and he ran gentle fingers over her cheek. “You didn’t see it… I must’ve been more distracting than I thought.”

Starting to get annoyed, Zelena was about to ask what in the seven Hells he was talking about when he held a hand up near his chest. A small blue-white fireball blossomed above his palm, illuminating the planes of his body in the shadows of the room. There, limned above his left nipple, was a soulmark. The lines were jagged so as to resemble flames, their color a vibrant green against the smooth white-gold of his skin.

Ignoring the protest of her hard-used muscles, Zelena shifted and sat up, reaching out to brush her fingers over his skin near the edges. She now understood the wonder in his voice, felt its echo in her soul.

The soulmark she bore was an almost identical pattern of flames, but where his was green, hers was a pale but vibrant blue.

Her eyes lifted to his as she tried to process it, to understand what had transpired between them in the context of their obvious connection. Hades, Dread Lord of Erebos, was her soulmate. The man who owned her, who had taken his pleasure in her with so little regard for how much he was hurting her, was the man that bore her mark on his skin. The man she was destined to spend the rest of her life with owned her in every way possible.

Something inside Zelena fractured at that. Something that sounded like her adoptive father, whispering in the back of her mind that she must be wicked after all, if it was her destiny to belong to a man that would use her as Hades had done.

Hades saw the shock on her face, watched it register into something like pain. There were tears welling in her eyes before she could stop them, and Hades drew her into his arms as they erupted into a storm of weeping she could not control.

Long after it was over, Zelena rested against her soulmate’s chest, letting herself soak in the way his arms wrapped so protectively around her. All thoughts of escaping this place once her magic was powerful enough had drained away as she’d cried herself out, leaving a strange hollow acceptance in their wake.

She belonged to Hades. He was her soulmate. Running away from him would never be an option; he would find her no matter how far away she tried to go. She was meant to warm his bed, suffer his pleasure, bear his children.

Perhaps, over time, she could coax him to be less callous with her. Perhaps, in time, he would care enough to give her as much pleasure as he took from her.

Perhaps, in time, he might even set her free. Might keep her beside him as a wife and lady, rather than as a bed slave.

Aware that her tears seemed to have run their course, Hades eased Zelena onto her back, brushing his lips over the remnants of saline on her cheeks. She sighed under the tenderness of it even as his knees wedged hers apart and she felt him growing hard against her thigh, his hands tracing softly along the lines of her body before encouraging her legs to wrap around his waist.

“I can’t believe he found you,” Hades whispered again, the words vibrating against her skin between his kisses. “You’re really here… you’re really here and you’re _**mine**_ …”

He surged in hard as he said it, making her cry out as his erection once again burrowed deep into her body. She closed her eyes against the unforgiving rhythm of his invasion, the thick, hard weight of him battering the path to her womb wide open over again and again.

This was her destiny: to lie beneath her soulmate while he pounded into her body for hours on end. To feel his seed flood hot and potent into her womb over and over, never knowing when it would take hold and make her heavy with a child that he had every right to tear from her breast as soon as it was old enough to survive without her.

She felt him shudder above her, felt him spilling inside her, heard him groan his completion. It would not be long before he recovered, before he would grow hard again and claim her for a fifth, sixth, seventh time. 

The cool light of dawn filtered through the windows as he prodded her onto her knees and elbows, once again forcing her legs almost painfully wide as he braced himself to claim her again. By now, she was certain that he was simply ignoring the sounds of pain she made as he mounted her from behind, seemingly determined to fill her womb so completely that there would be no chance of his seed not taking hold this very night.

And this was only the first of many, many nights to come.

Her adopted father had been right about everything, she thought as her soulmate filled her womb for the eighth time since they’d met. She was cursed, and this was her lot in life because of it.

This was the price of her magic.


End file.
